


noel

by pearlilly



Series: seasons [4]
Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas, F/F, I'm the worst but it'll be ok, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:39:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlilly/pseuds/pearlilly
Summary: in which Fallon and Kirby celebrate Christmas.
Relationships: Kirby Anders/Fallon Carrington
Series: seasons [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1512317
Comments: 13
Kudos: 27





	noel

Once Thanksgiving ended, Fallon and Kirby were largely left alone again. Blake and Cristal had made a brief appearance at dinner, but had left before dessert to go on yet another vacation - this time, spending the holiday in the penthouse they kept in New York. Fallon was beginning to suspect that the frequent vacations were nothing more than an excuse to be away from the manor, and she couldn’t say she blamed them. Steven and Anders had not followed up on their invitation to dinner, and as much as she tried to play it off like she didn’t care, the feeling of despair in the pit of her stomach had started to deepen, robbing her of her admittedly already scant holiday cheer. 

Kirby had liked her pie, though. She supposed that was something. 

As December opened, Fallon tried to keep busy, writing press releases for the  _ Atlantix _ \- the only contact she’d had at all with Michael, aside from the pie recipe he’d provided - and contributing to a weekly business column in the  _ Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  _

The small amount of work kept her surprisingly busy, on the road attending games and meeting with business leaders. She took Kirby with her on most of the trips, figuring she had to be just as disappointed in Steven and Anders as she and Blake were, and not wanting to leave her to fend for herself with Adam, who was still coming and going as he pleased. It had worked out surprisingly well. Not only was she an increasingly decent source of company, but she had also begun to prove herself as a capable secretary, as well. She kept track of Fallon’s appointments in a planner she’d purchased especially for the purpose, carefully color-coding each entry and quietly taking notes in the meetings she was permitted to sit in on - which was most of them. Fallon couldn’t explain it, but even as her Christmas cheer dissipated, her fondness for Kirby was one thing that hadn’t managed to wane. 

Kirby’s attitude, meanwhile, was nearly completely opposite to Fallon’s. She didn’t find the work Fallon assigned her appealing at all, but, eager to remain in the brunette’s good graces, she did it well and without complaint. She would have preferred to remain in the manor and decorate for Christmas - properly, this time, without any of the disaster that had been Halloween left to jinx her - but if this was what Fallon needed from her, then that was fine. She knew that the girl was stung by Steven and Anders’ lack of appearance on Thanksgiving, and so was trying to be a good sport and support her - even if it meant ignoring the increasingly painful fact that she had a crush on her. 

Kirby wasn’t sure when her feelings had shifted from platonic to something more; she’d only noted them recently and been somewhat horrified when she had. It wasn’t that she was afraid of liking girls;  _ that _ had been a thing for quite awhile. It was that she was afraid of liking  _ Fallon.  _ Despite the brunette’s recent warmth towards her, she wasn’t at all sure if the feelings would be reciprocated. Every time she did something that Kirby thought might be indicative of her feeling  _ something -  _ the pie she’d made her at Thanksgiving; rescuing her from the house when she got skeeved out by Adam; shrugging out of her blazer and draping it over her shoulders when she shivered during meetings, no longer used to a December that was cold - she almost immediately followed it up with a sharp glance or cutting remark that nearly gave Kirby whiplash. She had no idea where she stood with the girl anymore, and that increasing sense of pressure had begun to stress her out. 

It was mid-December, now; the girls were returning from yet another business trip, this time for a feature that Fallon had needed to write on location in Savannah. The trip had felt longer than usual. They’d driven the nearly four hours there instead of flying - well, Fallon had. They still hadn’t found a new driver for her since Culhane had left - and the person they’d been interviewing had such a strong Southern accent that it had taken nearly all of Kirby’s attention to be able to even understand them, much less to take notes that Fallon could rely on later. She’d tried to rewrite them into something cohesive on the drive back, but her pen shook and the uneven road made her paper bounce until it started to make her feel carsick. She gave up for the time being, capping her pen and tucking it and the notebook into the glove compartment. 

“Are we almost there?” 

Fallon was gripping the steering wheel a little more tightly than was strictly necessary, still not entirely accustomed to doing the driving herself. “Only about an hour or so.”

“Okay.” She pulled the strap of the seatbelt over her head, tucking it behind her shoulder so it wouldn’t cut into her neck.

Fallon cast her eyes over to her and clucked disapprovingly. “Ah. Nope. Wear it right, the last thing I need is for some trucker to cut us off and you go flying through the windshield.”

Kirby begrudgingly pulled the seatbelt back over her shoulder, unsure as to whether she was pleased that Fallon was concerned or annoyed that she was scolding her like an insolent eight year old. She decided to retaliate by grabbing Fallon’s enormous iced coffee and taking a huge pull from it. 

Fallon looked over at her again, but didn’t scold her this time. “Go ahead, you deserve it. You did well today.” 

Kirby flushed a little at the unexpected compliment. “Thanks. That guy was a little hard to understand.”

“Yeah, for me too. The accent changes the closer you get to Alabama. More deep south.”

“How did  _ you _ manage to end up without a Southern accent?” Kirby asked, the question suddenly occurring to her. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard you say ‘y’all’.”

“Formative years spent mostly with New York governesses, I guess,” Fallon replied, flicking on her turn signal somewhat aggressively. “Steven doesn’t have one either. I’m surprised we didn’t turn out sounding like Kiwis with how much your dad was around.”

She’d clearly meant the reference to Anders to be lighthearted, but Kirby felt the pang anyway. Fallon must’ve felt it, too, because she cleared her throat and tried to change the subject. 

“You can take a nap if you want. It’s a straight shot from here back to Atlanta, I can handle it.”

Kirby nodded, reclining her seat a bit and yawning for effect. She mostly just wanted to end the conversation, but she’d squeeze in a nap if she could get one. “Okay. Night.”

“Night.”

* * *

Kirby was awakened an hour later by Fallon at her door, gently tapping on her knee. 

“Kirby.  _ Kirby.  _ Wake up, we’re home.”

She stirred and looked around. Night had already fallen, so Fallon had pulled the car directly up to the manor’s front door - neither of them much liked walking from the garage in the dark. With all the press that had shown up on the front lawn after Matthew’s death and the affair with Trixie, they were all too aware of just how easy it was for anyone to scale the fence. 

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” she yawned. She flicked Fallon’s hand away from her knee, embarrassed by the goosebumps that had been racing across her skin just at that little touch. She reached for the glove compartment to retrieve her planner and notebook, but Fallon shook her head. 

“There’ll be time for that tomorrow. Let’s just go inside.”

Kirby nodded, still a little bleary eyed from sleep. Fallon stepped aside to give her room to get out of the car, then shut the door behind her and locked it. 

They quietly walked to the front door, neither of them really having much to say. It was a cold, clear night; Kirby could see the faint twinkle of stars lining the inky sky. She raised a hand and started to point a particular constellation out to Fallon, but she was struggling a little under the weight of her carryall. Kirby dropped her hand, feeling a bit stung by her inattention. She wasn’t looking, anyway.

Fallon fitted her key into the lock and dropped her bag on the table in the foyer, finally turning to Kirby with a small smile on her face.

“I have a surprise for you.”

“...A surprise?”

There it was again. Disregard immediately followed by attention. 

Whiplash.

“Yes. Go look in the living room.”

Kirby put her own small satchel on the foyer table beside Fallon’s bag and did as she was told. She had no idea what to expect - she’d really just kind of wanted to come home and go to bed. As she rounded the corner into the living room, though, she could feel her eyes widen in surprise. 

A tall, pristine Douglas fir stood proudly in one corner of the living room, and judging from its lush needles and strong pine scent, it was real. It stood well over Kirby’s head - it had to be at least eight feet tall. It had already been strung with several strands of white lights, and the whole thing twinkled handsomely as Kirby stared at it.

“What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful,” Kirby replied, finally finding her voice. She’d mentioned wanting a tree to Fallon several times, but they’d been so busy lately that she’d resigned herself to not getting one. “How did you do this?”

“I pulled a few strings. I know how important it was to you. It sucks that we’re alone for the holidays, but I figured we could at least do this together.”

“Do what?”

Fallon gestured to several boxes of decorations on the marble coffee table that Kirby hadn’t noticed before. “I had Martha and Rebecca bring these up from the basement,” she said, looking pleased with herself. She picked up a remote from the end table beside her and clicked it, and Christmas music suddenly started warbling out of the surround sound speakers. “I thought we could decorate it together, if you wanted. You deserve a reward for being so helpful to me lately.”

“Can we turn on the fireplace?” Kirby asked, feeling excitement start to rise in the pit of her stomach. Fallon might give her whiplash, but she always knew exactly how to make her happy.

“We can do anything you want,” Fallon replied. “I’ll be right back.”

She turned to leave, and Kirby flicked the switch on the wall to turn on the gas fireplace, then went over to one of the boxes and started going through it. She’d normally have assumed Fallon had bought all new ornaments for the occasion, but she’d mentioned the staff bringing them up from the basement, which might mean that they were ornaments she’d already had. 

The first box turned out to be just regular decorations: tinsel, garland, even a velvet Santa hat. Kirby dusted off the decorations and draped a few strands of tinsel and garland around her neck, putting the Santa hat on her head. Resigning herself to the fact that there were likely no ornaments in that box, she set it on the sofa and started rifling through the next one. 

This box was more promising - it was packed to the brim with smaller parcels swathed in tissue paper and bubble wrap. The first ornament she pulled out was a popsicle stick creation accented with puzzle pieces, a school photo of a young, gap-toothed Fallon inserted into the makeshift frame. Kirby smiled, delighted that her suspicions had been confirmed - these were the Carringtons’ family ornaments; the ones that she and Fallon used to use to decorate the small trees in their bedrooms as children… which meant that, somewhere, there was an ornament of Kirby’s own, left there when she’d been whisked away from the manor so many years ago.

Fallon was taking longer than she expected, so Kirby started going through a little more quickly. She pawed through salt dough ornaments with Fallon and Steven’s tiny thumbprints, popsicle stick reindeer, paper clip angels, misshapen pony bead snowflakes, and… there. Nestled in a dusty tin that had once held sugar cookies.

This ornament wasn’t handmade, but it was one that was special to Kirby all the same. It was one that her father had given to her when she was small; it in turn had been a gift from her mother to him on one of their first Christmases. A small ceramic dove clutched a sprig of holly and mistletoe in its beak. Anders had always said that Alicia would carry it around in her pocket until Christmas Eve, whipping it out and demanding a kiss whenever the whim arose. Kirby had liked it when she was little just because it was her mother’s, but now, remembering the story that accompanied it, she felt a nervous little rush go through her. Maybe she’d take a leaf out of her mother’s book. 

Kirby tucked the little dove into her pocket just as Fallon reentered the room, carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne and an array of Christmas cookies. Kirby smiled when she saw her, impressed with just how much thought she had put into the whole thing. 

“Wow, all of this just for us?”

Fallon shrugged, setting the tray on the table so she could sit on the edge of the sofa and kick off her heels. “It’s not that big of a deal.” She stood back up and crossed over to Kirby, the height difference between them even more apparent now that she didn’t have shoes on. She hefted a glass of champagne off the tray and handed Kirby the other, raising it in a toast.

“To new traditions.”

Kirby beamed and clinked her glass against Fallon’s, then took a sip. As usual, the champagne was crisp and perfectly chilled - as if Fallon would settle for anything less. 

“You wanna pick the first ornament?” Kirby asked. The little dove in her pocket suddenly felt like it weighed a ton, and she was very steadily losing her nerve. 

Fallon’s eyes strayed to the mess Kirby had made of the ornament box. She set her glass of champagne back down on the tray and grabbed a cookie, then picked up the first ornament Kirby had found - the puzzle piece and popsicle stick one with her picture in it. 

“We made these at school,” she explained, crossing over to the tree. “My mom wasn’t a fan, she said my glue application was shoddy.”

“I didn’t notice,” Kirby assured her. “And you were a kid.”

“Still, Alexis was never the most encouraging parent,” she mused, fixing the ornament to a prominent lower branch. “That’s why I dragged all these out instead of just buying new ones. Finally get to have the tree we want for once.”

Kirby felt a rush of warmth roll through her at Fallon’s use of the word ‘we’ and bent to select an ornament of her own. Rifling through the box, she surfaced with a metal cutout of the continent of Australia emblazoned with its flag, dangling from a red ribbon.

“A tribute to my homeland,” she said, hanging it on a branch near Fallon’s picture. “I’m still not used to having my seasons swapped around.”

“Would you rather be there than here?” Fallon asked. There was some kind of implication in her question that Kirby couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“God, no,” she replied, a little bit too quickly. “It’s  _ so  _ hot right now. And I wouldn’t have anyone to spend the holiday with.”

Fallon was quiet for a moment, feeling guilty - sometimes it was all too easy to forget that Alicia had passed away.

“Anyway,” Kirby continued, grabbing a sugar cookie and taking a bite, “If I wasn’t here, who would take notes for you?”

Fallon softened. “Is that really all you think I think you do?”

“No, but it is my main job, isn’t it?”

“I gave you that job so you’d…” She trailed off, taking another long sip of her champagne. “Never mind.”

“So I’d what?” Kirby asked curiously. One hand drifted to her pocket, ready to pull the dove out when she felt the moment was right.

“So you wouldn’t be alone here,” Fallon explained. Her face felt hot. “I mean… so you’d be with me.”

She seemed embarrassed by her confession, turning pink and charging toward the coffee table to retrieve her glass of champagne and take a healthy gulp. 

Butterflies were starting to gather in Kirby’s stomach and she reached into her pocket, fingers closing around the little dove. “I have another ornament I want to hang. Come help me.”

Fallon once again abandoned her champagne and crossed back over to Kirby. “You know I’m shorter than you. I don’t know how much help you’re expecting me to be.”

“Shh.” Kirby pulled the little dove out of her pocket and held it over their heads, trying to ignore how her fingers were shaking as she did so. “Look. Mistletoe.”

Fallon looked up to see the mistletoe clutched in the dove’s beak, then back at Kirby, her eyes wide as she tried to understand what was going on. “Kirby, I-”

Kirby leaned in and pressed her lips to Fallon’s before she could lose her nerve; before the brunette had a chance to get another word out. Fallon was stiff at first; unsure, but Kirby swore she could feel her lips soften and then she was putting her hands on her hips and-- 

Fallon ducked her head and broke the kiss, using her hands on Kirby’s hips not to pull her closer, but to gently guide her away.

Kirby lowered the dove, a swooping feeling of disappointment replacing the butterflies she’d felt just a moment ago. Oh,  _ no-  _

“Kirby, I…” Fallon stammered and turned pink, at a loss for words for the first time since Kirby had met her. “I think you…”

“Misread the moment,” Kirby finished for her. She all but stuffed the dove back into her pocket, stepping away from Fallon so her hands fell lamely back at her sides. “No, I get it. It’s fine.”

“It’s not that, I just… I don’t think I’m in a position to be with anyone right now. Not when I’m so deep in my own head with everything that’s been going on. I’m sorry if I led you on--”

“It’s  _ fine,”  _ Kirby insisted, wishing beyond everything that Fallon would just  _ shut up -  _ her pity stung even worse than her rejection. “I’m sorry,” she said lightly, trying to push past the situation and back into their regular banter. “My mistake.”

Fallon looked at her sadly. “I can, um… leave you alone, if you’d like.”

Kirby couldn’t think of anything she would like less, but the tension that often arose between her and Fallon had slammed back into place, feeling nearly impenetrable. “Yeah, you had a long day, so… you can go upstairs if you want, I’ll finish the tree. Thank you for getting it. Really. It’s beautiful.”

Fallon hovered for another long moment, seeming to waver between saying something or not. She finally just cleared her throat and turned away, leaving Kirby alone in the living room. 

Kirby grabbed the bottle of champagne from the coffee table and slumped to the floor by the tree, knocking back the rest of her glass before starting to swig directly from the bottle. She’d never felt so stupid. She tore the Santa hat from her head and cast it aside, feeling indescribably small in the huge living room beside the gigantic tree. The fireplace, the carols warbling from the speaker, the tray of cookies - it had all been so idyllic, and she’d had to go and ruin it. 

Staring at the floor, Kirby saw a flash of bright paper tucked under the tree that she hadn’t noticed before. She set the bottle of champagne aside and grabbed for the gift. 

“To Kirby, From Fallon,” she read aloud. She sighed heavily, briefly debating just throwing the gift into the fire - that would really be par for the course for the evening she’d had - but at the last moment she decided against it and tore it open to find a white box. Lifting the lid, she found a handwritten note from Fallon on her personalized letterhead. 

_ “For the girl I never thought I’d see again who I now can’t live without. You’re part of the family now. Merry Christmas, Kirby. Love, Fallon.” _

Kirby bit her lip and set the note aside to lift the tissue paper that swathed the gift inside. She carefully removed a hand-embroidered red stocking - Fallon’s own was already hanging on the mantel above the fireplace. The stocking had been elaborately decorated with woodland creatures - but wait, they weren’t the typical squirrels and possums she saw in Georgia. Instead there was a holly-draped kangaroo; a quokka wearing a Santa hat; an emu with a wreath around its neck. At the top of the stocking her name had been stitched in an elaborate script. 

Kirby stared at the stocking for a long moment, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat. It was beyond a doubt the most thoughtful thing she’d ever been given - aside from the ornament, of course. She wanted desperately to go up and thank Fallon for it, but thought that maybe she’d caused enough trouble for one night. Instead, she got to her feet and crossed to the fireplace, hanging it carefully beside Fallon’s. As she did so, she realized - Fallon had said she wasn’t ready to be with anyone right now, but she didn’t say she didn’t have feelings for Kirby, too. It was a small spark of hope, but it was enough to keep her going.

Kirby turned back to the boxes, methodically emptying each one and laying out the ornaments. She poured herself another glass of champagne and helped herself to another cookie as she set about her work. She and Fallon might not be together in every sense of the word, but she could give her a good Christmas - starting with a perfectly decorated tree.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to Sarah for beta reading :)


End file.
